


Chalkboard

by orphan_account



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wesley, Illyria, and a chalkboard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chalkboard

**Author's Note:**

> For carpenyx.

Wesley had managed to hunt down the only chalkboard in the entire Wolfram &amp; Hart building. There were whiteboards and projectors aplenty, but chalkboards? He could have had one specially ordered, but he had had a vision of a team of assassins--or worse, interns--threatening some grey-haired, bent-backed, overworked teacher in an underfunded L.A. school district and decided it was better to try for something the firm already had on hand.

Careful inspection assured him that it was a perfectly serviceable chalkboard, shallow scratches marring its surface here and there. The flakes of rust-colored substance embedded in some of those scratches might have been blood, but he chose not to entertain that possibility too closely. And fortunately, chalk--provided in some astonishing day-glo colors, like sticky notes--was more easily found.

It wasn't entirely rational, but he thought the chalkboard, solid and dark and made of stone, would remind Illyria of Fred's time in Pylea, remind Illyria of the woman she had destroyed. Whether the urge came from a desire to punish or to plead he could not say.

Illyria came up to his side, placing each foot precisely, like a cat. She tilted her head, watching as Wesley wrote one equation, then another. And another. And another.

The chalkboard never screeched. He still had that knack, at least.

It wasn't until he was hunched over three-quarters down the chalkboard that Illyria spoke. "What do you seek to accomplish with this gibberish?"

"Ah," Wesley said softly, "so you did notice."

"I am an Old One," Illyria said. "The void shouted my name before time existed. I have seen each of these equations of yours come into being and I can see the errors you have peppered them with. Why do you try my patience?"

He could find no trace of Fred's playfulness in the pale blue eyes. "It was a game Fred and I used to play, nothing more. We would exchange equations and proofs, and see if the other could find the mistake. She was always faster than I was."

"Of course. I would not have chosen the shell if she were not superior."

"Well, that's reassuring."

For all her haughtiness, when he went to erase the board the next day, he found that all the equations had been corrected.


End file.
